Chapter Text
The rain came down in sheets, the kind that didn’t just wet you but soaked straight into your bones. Jungkook kept walking anyway, sneakers squelching through puddles that reflected the sickly orange glow of streetlights. His black hair stuck to his forehead in heavy strands, water dripping off the ends and into his eyes. He didn’t bother wiping it away. The bruise along his left cheekbone throbbed in time with his heartbeat, a dull reminder of the way his stepfather’s fist had caught him earlier that evening. Same old shit. Raised voices turning into shoves, shoves turning into something worse. He’d swung back this time, hard enough to hear the man’s nose crunch, and then he’d bolted before the cops could get called.
Nineteen years old and already tired of the whole damn world.
He shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his damp hoodie, shoulders hunched against the cold. The suburban sprawl outside Seoul blurred into wet concrete and flickering neon signs for PC bangs and cheap fried chicken joints. He didn’t have anywhere to go. A friend’s couch was out—everyone was dealing with their own crap—and sleeping in the park tonight meant waking up with pneumonia. Music thumped somewhere ahead, muffled by the rain but insistent. Bass lines that crawled under his skin and tugged.
He followed it.
The club didn’t have a proper sign, just a flickering blue arrow painted on a rusted metal door at the bottom of a narrow stairwell tucked between two shuttered shops. People called it the Arcade, though there weren’t any games inside anymore. Just bodies, smoke, and noise. Jungkook pushed the door open and the sound hit him like a wave—old-school hip-hop bleeding into distorted electronic beats, the kind that made your chest vibrate. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, sweat, and spilled beer. Dim red and purple lights pulsed over a crowd that looked as lost as he felt.
He paid the bored-looking guy at the entrance with the last of his crumpled bills and slipped inside.
Up on the small stage that passed for a DJ booth, a guy with mint-green hair was hunched over the decks. The color should’ve looked ridiculous under those cheap lights, but it didn’t. It glowed faintly, almost unnatural, like the only living thing in the haze. His face was blank, eyes half-lidded as his hands moved over the mixer with practiced laziness. A cigarette dangled from his lips, ash threatening to fall onto the equipment. He looked older—mid-twenties, maybe—with sharp cheekbones and a jaw that hadn’t smiled in years. Black clothes, silver chain around his neck, sleeves pushed up to show pale forearms marked with faint scars and old ink.
Jungkook couldn’t stop staring.
He pushed through the crowd toward the bar, ordered the cheapest soju they had, and knocked it back too fast. The burn felt good. Real. Another glass followed, then a third. The music wrapped around him, familiar tracks twisted into something darker, more desperate. He recognized the style—raw, like someone bleeding memories into the speakers. The mint-haired guy was good. Too good for a hole like this.
The alcohol loosened the knot in his chest. For a minute, the bruise on his face didn’t hurt as much. He laughed at something a girl with pink streaks in her hair said, even though he didn’t catch the joke. Then some older guy—probably in his thirties, built like a washed-up factory worker—bumped into him hard enough to spill the rest of his drink.
“Watch it, kid,” the man slurred, shoving Jungkook’s shoulder.
Jungkook’s temper, already frayed from the night’s earlier fight, snapped. “You bumped into me, asshole.”
Words turned to pushing. The guy’s friend joined in. Fists flew sloppy and wild—Jungkook’s knuckles connected with a cheek, but he took a hit to the ribs that knocked the breath out of him. The crowd parted just enough to give them space, a few people cheering like it was entertainment. The music kept playing, but the energy shifted, irritation rippling toward the stage.
A hand grabbed the back of Jungkook’s hoodie and yanked him backward with surprising strength. He stumbled, nearly falling, and found himself staring up at the mint-haired DJ. Up close, the guy was shorter than he expected but carried himself like nothing could touch him. His eyes were dark, tired, the cigarette still burning between his fingers.
“Take it outside,” the DJ said, voice low and flat, barely audible over the track he’d left running. He didn’t sound angry. Just annoyed that his set had been interrupted. “Or don’t come back.”
The older guys muttered curses but backed off when the bouncer finally lumbered over. Jungkook wiped blood from his split lip with the back of his hand, breathing hard. The DJ’s grip on his hoodie loosened, but he didn’t let go completely. Instead, he steered Jungkook through the back hallway, past overflowing ashtrays and graffitied walls, and shoved the emergency exit open.
Cool night air rushed in, rain still pouring down in the narrow alley. The door slammed shut behind them, cutting off most of the music. Only the bass thumped through the brick like a distant heartbeat.
The older man leaned against the wet wall and lit a fresh cigarette, the flame from his lighter flickering in the downpour. He held the pack out without looking at Jungkook.
“Kids like you burn out fast,” he muttered around the smoke, voice rough from years of this exact scene. “Coming in here swinging like the world owes you something. Save it for someone who gives a shit.”
Jungkook took a cigarette with shaky fingers. He didn’t smoke often, but right now the idea of doing anything that made him feel less like a kicked dog sounded perfect. He leaned in for the light, close enough to smell the faint mix of tobacco, sweat, and something sharper—maybe cologne that had worn off hours ago. The mint hair looked even more vivid up close, strands damp from the humidity, falling across the guy’s forehead.
Their eyes met for a second. Jungkook saw it then—the same hollow look he carried around every day. Not sadness exactly. Just… emptiness. Like the guy had already watched all his dreams rot and decided it wasn’t worth the effort anymore.
“What’s your name?” Jungkook asked, the words slipping out before he could stop them. His voice came out quieter than he meant, almost hoarse.
The DJ exhaled smoke through his nose, watching it curl into the rain. “Yoongi.” He said it like it didn’t matter. Like names were just sounds people made to fill silence.
“Jungkook.”
Yoongi didn’t reply. He smoked in silence for another minute, staring at the opposite wall where water streamed down from a broken gutter. Then he pushed off the bricks, flicked the cigarette butt into a puddle, and started walking toward the alley’s exit without another word. His shoulders were hunched slightly against the rain, hands shoved into his pockets.
Jungkook stood there, cigarette burning down between his fingers, the bruise on his face pulsing hotter now. He should’ve gone back inside. Or gone anywhere else. Instead, he dropped the cigarette, crushed it under his shoe, and followed.
The streets were mostly empty this late. Rain hissed against the pavement. Yoongi didn’t look back, didn’t acknowledge the footsteps splashing behind him. He cut through side streets Jungkook had never bothered with before, past closed-down shops with metal grates and flickering security lights. Eventually they reached an old apartment building, the kind with peeling paint and buzzing fluorescent lights in the stairwell.
Yoongi paused at the entrance, keys jingling in his hand. He finally glanced over his shoulder. Jungkook stood a few meters back, soaked through, black hair dripping, eyes wide and uncertain but fixed on him like he’d found something he didn’t want to lose yet.
Yoongi’s expression didn’t change. No invitation. No rejection either. Just that same tired blankness.
He turned and went inside. The door clicked shut behind him.
Jungkook lingered under the awning for a long minute, rain drumming on the metal above his head. His ribs hurt. His face hurt. Everything felt raw and too loud inside his chest. But that spark—whatever it was he’d seen in Yoongi’s eyes—kept him rooted there.
Eventually, he turned and walked back into the rain, the image of mint-green hair glowing under cheap club lights burned behind his eyelids. He didn’t know where he was going. He just knew he’d find his way back here tomorrow.
The night felt a little less empty already.